Interrupting An Addict Poem by Lee Upton

An afternoon inlaid with fog
like a little fishing village.

Did I come at the wrong time?
Knicked with knife and soaked overnight,

your thinking came out curved—
a paisley. I was hacking my way

through creepers
at a defunct railroad crossing

when I asked, If it's none
of my business

why am I making a profit?
But as for you,

nothing was going on in Kubla Khan
except that you were drawing

your mind up before us
like a poison-stickled sea sponge.

Your dreamy portals were greased
all afternoon by blowflies fresh from sheep—

or sleep. I meant to say your sleep gave you
hours of swaddlings,

narcotics,
interruptions.